think ahead

If you know that you will be moving–for whatever reason–I strongly suggest doing some serious investigation of housing options prior to 1.5 months before you have to move. As you may know, I am now in the process of looking for a place to live during residency, which starts in late June. And I am hurting. I’ve already made two 8 hour treks and still haven’t found something that either has what I need or that I can afford. Quite frankly, I should have been thinking about this even before the results of the match were released. For those of you who will be going to through the residency interview process and match soon, start looking for places to live asap. Most of the time, one can guess around what part of the rank list one will match too. I was pretty sure I was going to match somewhere in my top 3 so I should have been seriously looking at places in those 3 cities back in february. Instead now I’m hurting. My taxes are due, I have to take USMLE Step II CK on monday, I need to complete and mail in my forms for medical licensure, my ill-advised, non-refundable vacation is coming up and I need to take another 8 hour drive on monday afternoon. Oh yes, I also need to get ACLS/ATLS certified too.

So to summarize the lessons to be learned from this (i.e. what I should have done in hindsight): 1) get ACLS/ATLS certified asap–most of you will take a month off in december or january for interviews, get certified on one of your off days. Also, most of your medical schools will offer these courses for free, so no excuses. 2) Start looking for residency housing ASAP. If you know where you will be (to varying degrees of certainty), start looking even before the match. Look in a few different cities if you have a gut feeling of where on your rank list you will land, but LOOK.

More lessons to follow as I find new mistakes I have made every day…